Mission accomplished: Boni in Texas with daughter

A week after more than a dozen helpers packed up her belongings, Brenda Boni was safely in her daughter's care in Texas.

"She's here, she's happy and she's safe," said Amy Gibson, 25, of her mother who asked for, and received help from the community to make the move to Texas.

"I want to say 'thank you' again," Gibson said. "I really didn't expect this help. It was an overwhelming response."

Boni, suffering from debilitating brain and bone diseases that have confined the once active 55-year-old woman to a wheelchair, asked two weeks ago for help to move her belongings to Texas to be with her only child. Boni's fear was that she would die in Carson City alone, having seen her granddaughter just once.

Scores of people responded to the call, donating enough money so that Boni could rent a U-Haul truck, purchase plane tickets and pack up her household goods.

Paramount in making it all happen was Christine Tuttle, who read of Boni's plight and offered to organize the help. On Feb. 19, more than a dozen people converged on Boni's home and packed up her items.

Then Monday, Dan Babb of Gardnerville, left Carson City with the U-Haul truck and unloaded it into Gibson's Texas garage on Tuesday.

By Wednesday morning Tuttle was escorting Boni to the Reno-Tahoe Inter-national Airport for the flight to the Lone Star state.

"(Brenda) kept telling me thank you for all I did to get her to Texas," said Tuttle.

"She was very nervous about the flight and being alone. I kept reassuring her it would be OK and she would be with Amy in 31⁄2 hours. It was very emotional ... I was very relieved when I spoke to Amy and Brenda was there safe and sound."

Tuttle, who had already planned a visit to Texas later this month to see her own family, will stop in Arlington to check on her new friends.

"We're just happy that she's here," said Gibson. She noted that her mother is an extra set of eyes to keep watch over 16-month-old Marilyn.

"Everyone's settled and we're so good. I can't believe how much help everyone was," she said. "They've improved tremendously the quality of the last years of my mother's life. She's already doing better."